


Albatross

by bluestar



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestar/pseuds/bluestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War is closing in, and things long ago put to the wayside are taken back into perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1.

 

When Zaeed first really noticed Doctor Chakwas, he was laying on one of her tables with a fractured leg and an arm reduced to mincemeat from a hard fall onto shrapnel-strewn ground. It had been a stupid accident that made him fall, and he had been in the middle of disgustedly berating himself for acting as immature as a jumpy recruit fresh from Basic when she was suddenly hovering over him.

            “You’re lucky this isn’t more severe,” she had said in matronly disapproval. “The point of armor is usually to protect oneself wholly from environmental hazards. Unless those tattoos are some form of heavy skin weave, I think you’re missing that point.”

            “Yeah, well,” was all he’d been able to muster in reply. Chakwas patched him up, slapped a thick coating of antibiotic sealant paste on his arm – and God did he lament the damage done to his original ink, there was only one tattooist on Omega he trusted for touchups and there was no time for shore leave – and then booted him out of her medbay.

That had been some months ago, and now he sat in the Citadel in the docks, watching ships pass by the broad, clear windows that looked out into the nebula. Shepard had come and gone, and to Zaeed it seemed the cares and worries she carried had bent her back, beating her down into constant weariness. Zaeed knew the look better than most.

He felt the same way, though not as keenly as Shepard did. He was sixty…what, five now? Six? Hell if he could keep track accurately half the time. But he didn’t feel old. He felt worn out. When he’d been a young man he’d have been in his element with this new goddamned war, going out into the fray and burning the bastards, laughing with the sound of blood pounding in his ears.

Now? He was wiser.

Shepard was burning out. But Zaeed, who liked the woman for her fierce combat skill and little else, was not particularly concerned for her. It was the idea that the doctor who so faithfully followed her would burn as well that bothered him. But even then, why? She’d given him cheek a couple times, patched him up, even saved his life once or twice. And she had a way of smiling when she thought no one was looking, a small smile that quirked one corner of her mouth and made her eyes crinkle at the corners-

“Christ,” Zaeed muttered, passing a hand over his face.  She didn’t even think much of him. He’d heard her opinion of him quite clearly after the Eldfell-Ashland refinery, at his rage as Vido flew away unscathed. She’d cared for his burns with an expression that spoke of deep, repressed dislike. That had made for a pleasant sleep-over in the medbay. Awkward silences avoided only by faking sleep, and then slinking out of the crew deck like a whipped dog to hide back in his room.

Zaeed felt a creeping flush of humiliation burn the back of his neck at the memory, steadily working up to his face. Chakwas had an inexplicable power to embarrass him, and if that wasn’t the most pointless thing in the world he didn’t know what was.

He wondered if she ever thought of him. He had not been much of a pleasant creature to look at, even before Vido had shot him. She was so clean and sterile she practically squeaked when she walked. And there was that faint perfume she wore, something artificially flowery, probably just a dab at the wrists and behind her ears. The scent had lingered on Zaeed’s skin when she’d touched him, removing bandages or applying medicines or a hundred other little things that required her to get far closer than he was normally comfortable with – with anyone, really. Letting people get close generally meant they had more opportunities to injure, maim or incapacitate. Zaeed couldn’t even remember the last time he hadn’t reflexively stepped away from someone trying to close on his personal space, even medics.

Her, though. Her he hadn’t minded so much, no matter how much cheek, or dislike, or disapproval.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

 

The Normandy crew was on leave, the ship itself limping back for a repair after skirting too close to Reapers in their territory.  Zaeed knew the musclebound rookie by sight if not by name, walking with pride and confidence that came from a sense of purpose and weathering through storms. He was chatty, too. – a real social kid. A little too social, maybe.

“I worked with your boss, you know,” he said to the kid, sitting off to one side as they were dealt into the poker game. The batarian slid cards to everyone sitting ‘round the empty rations crate, and Zaeed took up his cards without bothering to look at the hand. The kid ignored his own cards, giving him a speculative sort of look.

“Lotta people work with the Commander,” he said, shrugging. Zaeed couldn’t help but wonder what the hell they were feeding their people these days in the Alliance; the kid was built like a brick shithouse. “What makes you special, man?”

“Mostly taking out Collectors with her,” he replied, privately enjoying how the kid’s eyes widened in sudden shock. “Yeah, she doesn’t talk about that little suicide mission much, does she? Seems small time now that the Reapers are here. Fat lot of good we did, taking them out. Human worlds are still a priority to be razed to the ground.”

“She doesn’t talk about a lot of anything,” the kid answered. He extended his hand, and Zaeed shook it. “James Vega. Who’re you?”

“Zaeed Massani. You oughta tell your boss to try and unwind a bit. She looks fit to snap at any moment.”

Vega’s expression shuttered and he looked away from Zaeed, focusing on the game that had started without them.

“The Commander’s tougher than she looks,” he said. “You gotta be, if you want to make it through what we have to do every day.”

“I could tell you stories of things I did for pay that’d make your hair curl, kid,” Zaeed said unsympathetically. “Swanning around on an Alliance ship and saving the day doesn’t have the same bite.”

Vega’s face twitched slightly, and Zaeed smirked.

“Look, is there something you want, _abuelo?_ ” he asked. Zaeed’s amusement shriveled at the nickname and he gave Vega an icy look.

“Yeah. How’s the doc doing?”


	3. Chapter 3

3.

 

“You got a weirdass taste in men, Doc, I gotta tell you.”

Dr. Chakwas started, jarred from her reading as James joined her at the table in the mess.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, putting the datapad aside. James shrugged, spooning a watery mush that was struggling to be called oatmeal into his mouth.

“Ran into one of Lola’s old crew down at the docks,” he said thickly. “I-“

“James, for heaven’s sake, don’t talk with your mouth full.”

The eyeroll her admonishment earned her was ignored, and Chakwas gave him an unrelentingly stern look until James’ mouth snapped shut and he swallowed the food.

“ _Ay,_ you’re worse than my grandmother,” he said. Chakwas picked her datapad up again with a satisfied sound.

“Sounds like she was trying her best to civilize you,” she replied. James rolled his eyes again.

“Anyway, if I can get back to what I was sayin’? Some weird old…shit, I dunno if he was British or Australian, some guy named Zaeed? He wanted to know how you were doing. Just you. Didn’t ask about anyone else. Did insult Lola at one point, but maybe that’s just how he shows he cares.”

Chakwas looked genuinely baffled, putting the pad down again.

“Zaeed Massani was asking after me?” she said. “Isn’t that the strangest thing. We never got along particularly well while he was aboard. Didn’t see eye-to-eye on…well, anything really. He was perfectly content to bring an entire civilian complex down around his ears in the pursuit of killing a single man.”

James’ eyes widened.

“Did he get the guy?”

Chakwas laughed sharply, shaking her head.

“Do you think for a second Shepard would have allowed dozens of innocent people to die in a fire caused by one vengeance-hungry mercenary?”

James fell silent for a moment, and then shrugged.

“You weren’t there when we had to interrogate Ann Bryson,” he said distantly. “I’ve never seen her colder than when she was forcing Ann to hang on so we could corner the Leviathan. You know Ann’s got brain damage? The Commander you knew and the one I’ve been working with are two different people, Doc.”

Chakwas felt her lips thin, and she gave James a deeply stern look.

“I don’t think this is a path of conversation either of us should continue, Lieutenant,” she said. James nodded, then turned his regard back to his breakfast.

“Sorry, Doc. Anyway…you should check on that Massani guy. He seemed pretty interested to know you were still kicking around.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

4.

 

“What do you want?”

The batarian looked deeply uneasy as Zaeed stared at him, head ducking down and trying to sink into himself.

“I heard you take care of problems people have down here sometimes,” he muttered. Zaeed chewed on the end of his cheap cigar, then slid off his cot and ducked out of the makeshift shelter he’d ousted several other batarians to get. They hadn’t initially agreed to the move, but a broken collarbone and several threats against immediate family members had changed their minds.

“You can’t afford me,” he said contemptuously. “And I don’t work for batarians.”

The batarian flinched, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Please, my family is starving. The C-Sec officer for our block, he’s withholding rations for Council races, saying we’re freeloading off supplies other people need,” he said desperately. Zaeed snorted.

“You should be looking for someone who gives a damn,” he said. “Because I can tell you I wouldn’t be able to muster it even if I tried.”

He shooed the batarian away with an air of perfect indifference. The batarian bared his teeth at Zaeed in an angry hiss and turned away. Zaeed smirked and shook his head, taking his seat back on his cot. There were other batarians milling around in his corner of the docks, and they all stared at him with equal parts loathing and genuine fear.

It was exactly the kind of deference Zaeed liked – it meant the majority of slack-jawed idiots wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and screw around with him, and guaranteed he’d be left alone.

But some idiots were more far-gone than others, and it was those idiots that would approach him to protect them. To hell with that – he had his own skin to look after.

Of course, that was usually how he ended up being the only survivor of missions in the old days. Always looking out for number one. Vido had taught him that lesson. Never rely on anyone else.

But then Shepard had come and scooped him up for a wild hunt into the farthest reaches. She’d directed him with a force so fierce, so absolute, he’d actually…forgotten himself. Zaeed drew meditatively on his cigar, the acrid smoke rolling thickly in his mouth. Shepard was the sun around which everyone around her revolved. She pointed, they moved. Zaeed had never inspired that kind of loyalty before. He didn’t have it in him.

The cloud of smoke left him in a sudden angry huff. Being introspective wasn’t an activity he liked. He wasn’t suited to stillness. He was a creature of action, and he needed to be active to keep sane. He had no one to talk to, after all. Just the usual idiots that wanted to hire him and-

“Hey, _abuelo._ You coming to the card game or what?”

Zaeed started slightly. The brick shithouse was casting a long shadow over him as he stood in the shanty doorway. He looked vaguely smug for having caught the older man off-guard.

“That better not be a curse you’re callin’ me,” Zaeed grated, annoyed. “Who the hell says I feel like playing cards again with you? You cheat.”

“Nah man, I don’t cheat,” Vega said, easy humor in his voice. “Batarians’d chop my hands off if they caught me cheating. I got the grace of angels on my side. You comin’? Maybe some of it’ll rub off on you.”

“I’d rather catch an omni-blade with my teeth,” Zaeed growled. Vega laughed, shaking his head in incredulous amusement.

“You already got a face looks like you scraped it on a turian’s ass. C’mon and play. Maybe I’ll even tell you what Karin said about you.”

“Who the hell is Karin?”

“Sorry, sorry. Doctor _Chakwas,_ I mean.”

Zaeed paused.

“...Alright, maybe I’m up for a game or two.”


End file.
